An Officer and a Spy

everything!’
    ‘Blanche,’ I say gently, detaching her hand from my arm, ‘we need to talk in private, and I think perhaps Aimery should join us. Would you mind getting him?’
    For the first time she sees that I am serious. She gives a nervous laugh. ‘Oh, Georges,’ she says, ‘this is too ominous!’ But she goes and fetches her brother.
    Aimery saunters in, as young-looking as ever, wearing a well-cut grey suit and carrying two cups of tea. ‘Hello, Georges. I suppose if you won’t come to the samovar, the tea will have to come to you.’
    And so the three of us sit by the fire, and while Aimery sips his tea and Blanche smokes one of her brightly coloured Turkish cigarettes, I describe how her name has been used on a fake telegram, almost certainly dreamed up by du Paty, sent to me in Tunisia. Her eyes gleam. She seems to think it a great adventure. Aimery, though, scents the danger at once.
    ‘Why would du Paty use Blanche’s name?’
    ‘Because she knows Germain Ducasse, and Ducasse worked for me on an intelligence operation against Esterhazy. And so it looks as though we’re all part of this imaginary “Jewish syndicate” that is working to free Dreyfus.’
    ‘It’s utterly ridiculous,’ says Blanche through a mouthful of smoke. ‘No one will believe it for an instant.’
    Aimery asks, ‘Why use Blanche’s name? I also know Ducasse. Why not use mine?’ He sounds genuinely puzzled. He glances at me, and then at his sister. Neither of us can quite bring ourselves to meet his gaze. A few awkward seconds pass. Aimery is no fool. ‘Ah,’ he says quietly, nodding slowly, ‘I see.’
    ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ exclaims Blanche irritably, ‘you’re worse than Father! What does it matter?’
    Aimery, who is suddenly very tense and silent, folds his arms and stares hard at the carpet, leaving it to me to explain: ‘I’m afraid it does matter, Blanche, because you’re bound to be questioned about the telegrams, and then it’s certain to reach the newspapers, and there will be a scandal.’
    ‘Let there be—’
    Aimery interrupts her furiously: ‘Just be quiet, Blanche – for once! It doesn’t only concern you. It drags the whole family into the mess! Think of your mother. And don’t forget I’m a serving officer!’ He turns to me. ‘We’ll need to talk to our lawyers.’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘In the meantime, I think it would be better if you didn’t come to this house or make any attempt to contact my sister.’
    Blanche appeals to him: ‘Aimery . . .’
    I stand to leave. ‘I understand.’
    ‘I’m sorry, Georges,’ says Aimery. ‘That’s just the way it has to be.’
    Christmas and the New Year pass, the former spent with the Gasts in Ville-d’Avray, the latter with Anna and Jules in the rue Cassette; Pauline stays in the south. I sell my Erard piano to a dealer for five thousand francs and send her the money.
    Esterhazy’s court martial is fixed for Monday 10 January 1898. I am summoned to appear as a witness; so is Louis. But on the Friday before the hearing, his father finally succumbs to his long illness and dies in Strasbourg; Louis is excused to go home to his family.
    ‘I don’t know what I should do,’ he says.
    ‘My dear friend,’ I reply, ‘there is no doubt about it. Go and be with your family.’
    ‘But the trial . . . You’ll be alone . . .’
    ‘Frankly, it will make no difference to the outcome whether you are there or not. Go.’
    On Monday, in the pre-dawn darkness, I rise early, don the pale blue tunic of the 4th Tunisian Rifles, pin on the ribbon of the Legion of Honour, and, trailed by a pair of plain-clothes police agents, make the familiar journey across Paris to the military court building in the rue Cherche-Midi.
    The day is hostile from the start: cold, grey, spitting rain. In the street between the prison and the courthouse a dozen gendarmes stand dripping in their caps and capes, but there are no crowds for them to control. I walk over the slippery cobbled forecourt into the same bleak ex-nunnery in which Dreyfus was tried more than three years ago. A captain of the Republican Guard shows me into a holding room for witnesses. I am the first to arrive. It is a small whitewashed chamber with a single barred window set above head height, a flagstone floor and hard wooden chairs ranged around the sides. A coal-burner in the corner barely suffices to take the edge off the chill. Above it is a picture of Christ with a